Doughnuts and the Salvation Army
This prominence came about due to the Salvation Army and its willingness to be placed into dangerous areas during World War I and serve the men fighting in that war. Doughnut Lasses, women who took it upon themselves to enter into dangerous areas to give the soldiers fighting a taste of home.
That taste of home lingered through the war and with the soldiers until the returned home. Once they were home, they wanted to have some of the doughnuts they had enjoyed while gone to battle. This affinity for the doughnut gave rise to doughnut shops and the doughnut machine. National Doughnut Day was also established following the war, to celebrate not only the doughnut, but the soldiers and Salvation Army personnel that survived the war, or was lost in the war.